Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): ¿Te gusta bailar?

In Spanish, te is an indirect object pronoun that literally means to you. When saying ¿Te gusta bailar?, we’re using te to indicate that dancing is pleasing to you, rather than using tú as the subject. Essentially, the subject of the sentence is bailar (dancing), and te is the person affected by the action (the one who finds dancing pleasing).

Why is it gusta and not gustas?

Because in this construction, bailar is the subject, which is singular (an action, like dancing). Gustar always matches its subject in number. Since bailar is singular, we use the third-person singular form gusta. If we were talking about multiple things, for instance los bailes (the dances), we would say ¿Te gustan los bailes?

How about if I want to say this formally to someone I don’t know very well?

You would replace te with le to show formality. So you’d say ¿Le gusta bailar? This uses the formal third-person pronoun instead of the informal second-person pronoun.

Does this need an upside-down question mark at the beginning?

Yes, Spanish requires an inverted question mark ¿ at the start of any direct question. This is a standard rule of Spanish punctuation, so the correct form is ¿Te gusta bailar? rather than Te gusta bailar? without the inverted mark.

How can I respond if someone asks me ¿Te gusta bailar??

You can answer simply:

Sí, me gusta bailar (Yes, I like to dance)
No, no me gusta bailar (No, I don’t like to dance)
If you love dancing, you might say ¡Me encanta bailar! (I love dancing!).